


Do I Twist, Do I Fold

by rosa_acicularis



Series: Amor Mundi [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-29
Updated: 2013-11-29
Packaged: 2018-01-02 23:03:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1062701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosa_acicularis/pseuds/rosa_acicularis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Will you walk into my parlor?" said the spider to the fly.</i> </p><p>Rose runs an errand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to Livejournal and Teaspoon in 2007. Contains disturbing content, some sexualized violence, and a scene of forced telepathy.  
  
_"Will you walk into my parlor?" said the spider to the fly;_  
 _"'Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you may spy._  
 _The way into my parlor is up a winding stair,_  
 _And I have many curious things to show you when you are there."_  
 _"Oh no, no," said the little fly, "to ask me is in vain,_  
 _For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again."_

The Spider and the Fly, Mary Howitt

  
  
The jump seat creaks as Rose slides down, curving her back against the worn fabric and reaching with her toes for the edge of the console. Her legs aren’t quite long enough, and she nearly falls to the grated floor.  
  
This is the most exciting thing that has happened all day.  
  
With a sigh, she tucks her legs beneath her again and looks down to where the Doctor’s plimsoll-clad feet stick out from under the TARDIS console. His right foot is moving slightly, tapping to a rhythm she cannot hear. She returns to her book.  
  
After a few minutes, he breaks the silence, his voice muffled by wires and metal. “Mahna mahna.”  
  
“Doo doo, do do do,” she replies without looking up.  
  
“Mahna mahna.”  
  
“Doo doo doo do.”  
  
“Mahna mahna.”  
  
“Doo doo, do do do; do do do, do do do, do…seriously, though, how long is this going to take?”  
  
He chuckles, and then she hears the snap of a sparking wire and a yelp. “Bored already?” he asks, the words garbled by what she imagines is the presence of his singed finger in his mouth.  
  
Rose sets the book aside and hops off the jump seat. She crawls beneath the console until a low-hanging cluster of wires forces her to lie on her back and wriggle until she’s lying beside him, the glowing lights of the console’s underbelly in her face. A wire tickles her nose, and she brushes it away.  
  
“I’m not bored,” she says sulkily.  
  
He glances away from the clump of unidentifiable something he’s struggling with and grins at her. “Yes, you are.”  
  
His smug expression is in shadow but for the green and blue lights that shine around them. He makes a self-satisfied noise and tiny orange bulbs are added to the mix, and in the glow he looks at once unfamiliarly alien and much like he did that night at the carnival in Louisiana when he ate too much candy floss and whined for hours about his poor Time Lord tummy.  
  
She must have an unusually contemplative look on her face, because he nudges her with his elbow and asks, “Something bothering you?”  
  
She doesn’t know how to verbalize this strange contradiction she’s lived with in the years she’s lived with him. He is not human, but sometimes he plays the game so well she thinks they both forget. She reaches over his chest and holds a tangle of wire steady for him as he fiddles with the insulation. “Nothing, really. I just…I always meant to ask, but…you’re telepathic?”  
  
He stills. “Ah,” he says, and she knows he’s stalling, buying time to decide which truth to tell her. “Chloe Webber. I thought that might come up.”  
  
“You’d said before, but I wasn’t sure if it was a joke or not.”  
  
“It’s not something I do very often. I don’t really…”  
  
His reluctance is palpable in the close space between them, and she sighs. “We don’t have to talk about it.”  
  
He turns his head and gives her a grateful smile. “Maybe later?”  
  
She nods and knows that this is a conversation they will never have unless circumstances force them into it. She’s become accustomed to questions left unanswered.  
  
“Pizza!” he says suddenly, and she jumps, startled.  
  
“Pizza?”  
  
“Pizza,” he repeats with great authority, worming his way out from beneath the console with an ease she envies. She barely avoids knocking her head against a hunk of metal that resembles half a car bumper as she follows him. Once she finally makes it out, he helps her to her feet, his beaming face smudged with dust and grease. “Just what we need for a lazy Sunday afternoon in the TARDIS.” He begins setting coordinates, and she has to jump out of the way as he flies around the controls.  
  
“It’s Sunday?” she asks, bemused.  
  
“Figuratively speaking, Rose.” The TARDIS leaves the vortex with a jolt, and he throws an arm around her waist to keep her upright. When he loses his balance a moment later, she goes tumbling to the floor with him. On top of him.  
  
“Ooh,” he moans. “Your knee is crushing my spleen.”  
  
She rolls off him and laughs. “Your spleen is in your thigh?”  
  
“One of them was,” he answers with a ridiculous grimace.  
  
“You are so full of it.”  
  
He glares at her as she pulls him to his feet. “Last time I try chivalry ‘round you, if this is how you repay me.”  
  
“Baby.” She moves to the monitor and has to give it a bit of a smack before the picture appears. She looks out onto a busy city street. “Where are we?”  
  
“New York City, half a block from _Big Tony’s Heroes and Pizza_.” He stands behind her. “Which is in…” he points to the right side of the screen, “that direction.” He sighs wistfully. “Undoubtedly the best pizza in the universe. Well, except for those few weeks in 1984, of course.”  
  
“Of course.” She watches people hurry by and shakes her head. “I can’t believe no one noticed the TARDIS materialize.”  
  
He leans back against the console, rolling his eyes. “Please. This is Manhattan. Even without the TARDIS’ perception filters, I’d be amazed if anyone so much as gave us a second glace.”  
  
“I suppose that means we’re not ordering delivery.”  
  
“Not exactly,” he hedges, a look of slight apprehension appearing on his face. “Since I have repairs to finish, I thought…”  
  
She folds her arms over her chest. “You thought?”  
  
“Stop looking at me as if I’ve made you my intergalactic errand girl,” he says defensively. “You were bored. Think of it as an adventure.”  
  
She doesn’t really mind, but has no intention of letting him know that. She sighs exasperatedly, hiding a smile. “All right, I’ll go. What do you want?”  
  
He grins and rubs his hands together in anticipation. “Ooh! Extra large, extra cheese, extra sauce.” He pauses. “And pineapple.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Rose–”  
  
“Will they even _have_ pineapple?”  
  
His smile turns wicked. “Big Tony knows what I like.”  
  
“That’s…” She laughs, her nose wrinkling. “I’m not going to touch that one.”  
  
“Wise choice.” They simply stand there for a moment, grinning at each other like the idiots they know themselves to be. It’s one of those rare moments when their fabled forever feels like the grates beneath their feet and the glow of time rotor — here and home and impossibly possible.  
  
He is always the first to look away.  
  
“Get a move on, then,” he says, shooing her toward the doors. “The perfect pizza pie waits for no man.” He pauses. “Or woman…human, girl-type thing.” He mimes cracking a whip and affects a broad American accent. “Git along, little doggie.”  
  
“First off–” She points a finger at him. “That thing you just did? Never again. Second,” she holds out her empty hand, “money?”  
  
“Right! Money!” He begins to search through his pockets, pulling out one random, inexplicable object after another. “I know I have some in here somewhere…”  
  
“Probably not in the Russian nesting dolls,” she says dryly.  
  
He winks at her. “Well, we can’t be sure until I check them all, can we?”  
  
She sighs. “Doctor–”  
  
“Aha! Good old American buckaroos.” He waves a handful of dollar bills in her face and then slaps them onto her open palm. “Go crazy. Buy yourself a lemonade.”  
  
She counts the money quickly, aware that attention to this sort of detail isn’t exactly his strong point. “Doctor, what year is it?”  
  
He squints into the distance for a moment, as if doing complicated maths in his head. “2007,” he says finally. “August.”  
  
“Then I’m probably going to need about ten more dollars.”  
  
“Really?” He frowns, but hands over the rest of the money. “You humans and your inflation.”  
  
“You aliens and your pineapple,” she tosses over her shoulder with a grin as she makes her way to the TARDIS doors, tucking the money into her jeans pocket.  
  
“Oi!” he calls after her. “I’ll have you know that plenty of people enjoy the tangy sweetness of–”  
  
She closes the door behind her, cutting off the rest of his sentence. The humidity of a New York summer hits her like a wall, and she shrugs off her hoodie. She’s been here before with him, but it’s different now that she’s alone and so close to her own time. She grins and, heading to the right, lets herself get lost in the bustle of people around her. She doesn’t go far before she sees a somewhat faded sign for _Big Tony’s_.  
  
A bell tinkles as she pushes the door open and enters. The place is mostly empty, a few patrons lingering in cracked red booths, a single businessman perched on a stool at the counter. An ancient air conditioner whines overhead, fighting a losing battle against the late afternoon heat. The heavy smell of tomatoes and grease is divine.  
  
A short, wiry man behind the register gives her a sly half-grin. “Hey, kid. What can I get for you?”  
  
She bites her lip, unsure of what to get for herself. “One…um…small pizza with mushrooms, please.” The Doctor won’t touch mushrooms (not anymore) so she’s sure to have it all to herself. “And one extra large with extra sauce, extra cheese, and…” She winces. “Pineapple.”  
  
The man laughs. “Oh no, sweetheart. Not you, too.” He tilts his head to indicate the businessman sitting at the far end of the counter, who looks up from his phone call, gives her a brilliant grin, and wiggles his fingers at her in a silly sort of wave.  
  
She smiles and waves back, then turns to the man behind the register. “Sorry, it’s not me. My friend, he…he really likes pineapple.” She leans forward and confides, “I think it’s rubbish on pizza, myself.”  
  
They share a conspiratorial grin as she pays, and he tells her the pies should be ready in twenty minutes. She perches on a stool to wait and feels herself begin to sweat in the close heat.  
  
“I couldn’t help but notice,” says a smooth voice by her ear, “the presence of a fellow countrywoman.” She looks up, startled, to see that the businessman has appeared beside her. He smiles winningly. “May I join you?”  
  
He sits before she can respond, dropping his plate to the counter and setting his mobile beside it, still open. His slice of pizza is untouched but for where she can see he’s picked off the pieces of pineapple.  
  
“I’m only waiting for my pizzas,” she says, not wanting to be unfriendly but unwilling to encourage his attentions. “My friend is expecting me.”  
  
“Lucky man.” The words are casually, effortlessly flirtatious, and she notes the cut of his suit and the rich, subtle scent of his aftershave. _Brilliant_ , she thinks. _I’ve landed one with money_. Her mother would be overjoyed. All Rose can think of is escape.  
  
She’s about to make her excuses and wander the sidewalks while she waits, heat be damned, when he leans in, his elbow bumping hers where it rests on the counter. “You,” he says, voice low, “look a bit parched. New York summer getting you down?”  
  
He says it in a flat, American accent, like he’s repeating an advert from television or the side of a bus. _New York summer getting you down? Call Bargain Bob’s Heating and Cooling. It’s a breeze!_  
  
She gives him a tight smile, shifting to put more distance between them. “I’m fine.”  
  
The businessman smiles back, and she feels herself relax slightly. She isn’t interested, but he is undeniably attractive, and sometimes it’s nice to be noticed. She meets his eyes and he stares back at her, his grin fading as she is drawn in by his gaze, brown and dark and somehow–  
  
He snaps his head to the side, turning to lean over the counter that separates them from the kitchen. He stands up on the rungs of the stool, one hand nearly landing in his slice of pizza, the other covering his mobile. She hears a faint beep as he accidentally pushes a few buttons. “Garcon!” he cries, his tone playful. The wiry man who took her order turns to glare at him. “A lemonade for the lady.”  
  
“Sure thing,” the wiry man grumbles. When he reaches over the partition to pass her the sweating Styrofoam cup, the businessman snatches it out of his hand.  
  
“Ta, Tony,” he says with a wink. “Put it on my tab.”  
  
‘Big’ Tony rolls his eyes and returns to work. Rose smirks and accepts the lemonade when the stranger offers it with a flourish. “He doesn’t seem to like you much,” she says.  
  
“I know! Isn’t it brilliant?” He props his chin up on his hand and watches her drink. The lemonade is delicious, if a bit too sweet for her taste. “I’ve been in here every day this week and nothing in my considerable arsenal of charm will wear him down. And I’ve tried everything — card tricks, pony rides, belly dancing…” He waggles his eyebrows at her. “Hypnosis.”  
  
She giggles. “Hard to believe the belly dancing didn’t do the trick.”  
  
“Well,” he drawls, and suddenly the look in his eyes is one of unambiguous seduction, his expression predatory and appraising. “I don’t like to brag, but I’ve got the hips for it.”  
  
His voice is still light, still teasing, and she thinks she might be imagining the heat in his gaze. His eyes drop to her mouth, and she realises that she’s licking the sugar from her lips. She stops immediately and looks away.  
  
She doesn’t want to flirt with him. She wants to pick up her pizzas and return to the TARDIS, where she can spend a lazy not-Sunday not-afternoon with the Doctor, tinkering and laughing and leaving greasy fingerprints all over the console. Her heartbeat is too loud in her ears, and she thinks it must be the heat. She takes another long drink of her lemonade.  
  
She can feel him staring at her, and she hates herself a little for the blush that warms her cheeks. She feels vulnerable and unsettled, and the unwavering attention that was flattering a moment ago makes the skin at the back of her neck prickle.  
  
His fingers curl around her wrist, cool and smooth against her skin, and he leans into her, his shoulder brushing hers. “I’m lying,” he whispers. “I _love_ to brag.”  
  
Rose pulls her hand away, moving it to her lap. “That’s enough.”  
  
His grin turns harmless and he holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “So sorry. I must have misinterpreted.” He looks more delighted than contrite. “Suppose I got a bit carried away, didn’t I? Long way from home, miss the wife, you know how it is.” He chuckles to himself as if he’s made a particularly clever joke.  
  
“It’s all right,” she says, though it isn’t. She tries to meet Tony’s gaze over the partition, silently urging him to hurry, but though he’s looking in her direction, he doesn’t seem to notice.  
  
“You’re a long way from home yourself.”  
  
“Just passing through,” she answers automatically, staring at the metal napkin dispenser in front of her and avoiding his eyes.  
  
“You and your friend?” he asks casually, and something cold and hard settles low in her stomach, something her years of travel through time and space have taught her not to ignore.  
  
“What about you?” she says, her voice every bit as nonchalant as his as she slowly, subtly slips her hand into her jeans pocket for her mobile. “Here on _business_?”  
  
At the emphasis she places on that last word, he hoots and slaps his hand down on the counter. Startled, she turns to find him beaming at her like she’s his prize gourd at a farm fair.  
  
“Oh, look at you,” he croons. “I _adore_ you.” Before she can react his fingers wrap around her wrist again, tightening like steel bands. “Oh dear. Is it too soon in our budding relationship for me to say things like that? Am I being forward?”  
  
“Let go of me _right now_ ,” she shouts, her voice thundering over the murmur of the other patrons and the hum of the air conditioner. No one so much as flinches. “Tony!” He doesn’t even look up from the dough he’s pounding.  
  
The stranger tuts and shakes his head. “The apathy of the average American. Shocking, isn’t it?”  
  
She struggles, knocking over her stool in the process, but the grip on her hand is too strong. “What have you done? Why can’t they see me?”  
  
He yanks her to him and she slides across the floor, just barely catching herself on the edge of the counter with her free hand. “Oh, Rose,” he sighs. “I expected better from you. Is that really all you’ve got?” His voice goes high and shrill. “What have you done? What’s your evil plan? Why are you so _naughty_?” He deflates a little, looking woeful. “I suppose it’s my own fault for getting my hopes up too high. I have _so_ been looking forward to meeting you, the great _Rose Tyler_.” He savours the sound of her name, rolling the syllables over his tongue, and the intimacy of it makes her cold.  
  
“It’s a perception filter, isn’t it? Makes us invisible?” she asks. He reacts as exactly as she’d hoped he would, rolling his eyes in the manner of someone used to suffering fools.  
  
“What _is_ he teaching you? Yes, Rose, the Doctor is a sexy, geeky little Albus Dumbledore who hides his TARDIS beneath a Cloak of Invisibility. Well spotted.” He pulls hard on her wrist, wrenching her shoulder. She whimpers pitifully, and notes with satisfaction his expression of disdain. “A perception filter doesn’t make you invisible, you little twit, just unnoticeable. There’s no way it would hold up under the ruckus you’re making. With this, on the other hand,” and there it is, a tiny, unconscious motion of his chin to indicate something behind him — his mobile. “You could scream bloody murder and no one in the city would so much as lift a finger to help you. Which is pretty much exactly what is going to happen, happily enough.”  
  
“The Doctor will save me,” she says breathily, counting on blonde hair and wide eyes to sell it.  
  
When he bursts into laughter she makes her move, lunging for his mobile with her free hand. She’s fast but he’s far faster, his fist slamming into her abdomen, knocking the breath from her lungs. She sags to the floor, gasping, but he drags her upright, and one sharp movement of his elbow sends the mobile flying to the other end of the counter.  
  
He ruffles her hair affectionately. “Aw, good girl. That’s more like it.”  
  
“What are you?” she pants, aching and just barely holding back her panic.  
  
“Well,” he says, grinning widely, “if your dear Doctor is Dumbledore, who do you think that makes me?”  
  
“A snake in the grass?”  
  
“Behold, ladies and gentlemen!” he announces grandly to the oblivious room. “The bird can bring the banter!”  
  
“You do like the sound of your own voice, don’t you?” She tries to sound aloof, unworried, but his bruising grip on her wrist has tightened and she knows there’s no way for her to reach the mobile in her pocket unnoticed.  
  
He smiles again and the hungry, heated look in his eyes returns. “You quite enjoyed it yourself until a moment ago.”  
  
“Well, I have a weakness for pretty boys,” she says dryly. “Ask anyone.”  
  
“That,” he says with a smirk, “explains a lot.” He rubs his hand idly over his jaw. “I have to say, as regenerations go, I’m rather pleased with this one. Bit younger than I usually prefer, but hey — all the cool kids are doing it.”  
  
She gapes at him, for a moment all danger forgotten. “But that’s impossible,” she whispers. “You can’t be.”  
  
“What? Devastatingly handsome?” he asks, but the teasing light has gone out of his eyes. He shoves her against the counter, the edge digging into her back as he leans into her. “What? Can’t be what? A _Time Lord_?” His face is terrifyingly blank, his eyes huge and dark. “I landed on this dusty little slum of a planet and I couldn’t hear a thing from them, not a single blessed _trickle_ of a thought. It was silence, silence you couldn’t imagine, nothing left but the pounding, the never-ending beat…” He laughs, and she can see the madness in his eyes. “So tell me, little human, where have all the Time Lords gone?”  
  
She swallows. “They’re dead.”  
  
He grins, his teeth flashing, and she recognizes denial when she sees it. “You’re wrong.”  
  
“He’s the last.”  
  
“You think so?” He grabs her other hand and presses both to his chest. Beneath the fine fabric of his shirt she can feel two hearts beating. The sensation is unbearably familiar, and for a moment she cannot separate the man she fears from the man she loves. The rhythm in their chests, the pulse of their blood is the same, and it overwhelms her. “What do you think of that, my Rose?”  
  
“Who _are_ you?” she breathes, and he smiles at her with something like affection.  
  
“Oh, I’m so very glad you asked.” He slides his cheeks past hers, skin brushing skin, until his lips reach her ear. “I am the Master, and you will obey me.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Sorry,” she replies, her voice hushed, her eyelashes fluttering against his temple. “Never heard of you.” Ripping her left hand from his grasp, she reaches behind her, seizes the weighty metal napkin dispenser on the counter, and slams it into the side of his face. He crumples to the floor and she runs, hurtling across the short distance to the door.   
  
She’s nearly to safety when she hears a sharp bark of laughter; a yellow beam of light screeches past her, just barely missing her shoulder. She dives to the side, toppling an empty table and ducking behind it. Pulling her mobile from her pocket, she begins to dial the TARDIS’ number, her hands shaking, her t-shirt sticking to her back in the heat.  
  
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Rosie my girl. Not your best move.” A beam of light shoots past the edge of the small table, past her face, and scorches the tile just next to her foot. She jumps, and he laughs again. “You see, I’m going to start counting, and for every moment that passes between now and when you hand over that mobile like the obedient little companion you are, I’m going to kill one of our fellow diners.”   
  
She freezes, horribly aware of the soft beep her mobile would make if she pressed another button. She watches an elderly man work on a crossword only a few feet away, oblivious to the danger he’s in. “Why not just come over here and kill _me_?”   
  
“That’s an excellent question, Rose! Well done.” She hears the click of his shoes against the floor as he wanders idly closer. “You know,” the Master muses, “I’ve never found much pleasure in random slaughter. Maybe I’ll go youngest to oldest — or is that ageist? I suppose I could start with Tony and his dough tossing fellows, though that smacks of class discrimination, doesn’t it?” He sighs. “You humans. You can suck the fun out of anything. Great big fun suckers, that’s what you are.” He stops walking and she can feel him, waiting just out of sight. Then he barks, “One!” and she doesn’t hesitate before sliding her mobile across the floor to his feet.   
  
“Pretty hard to use me as bait if the Doctor doesn’t know I’m in danger,” she says, keeping her voice as steady as she can, her eyes on the door. “Or does your dastardly plan involve cutting letters out of magazines and sellotaping a ransom note to the TARDIS door? ‘Dear Doctor, not dead like you thought, but blondie here will be unless you walk into my shamefully obvious trap. Love, Time Lord Village Idiot.’”  
  
“That’s village _lunatic_ , thank you very much,” he says, sounding incredibly entertained. “Oh, Rose. Are you counting on the fact that arrogance is my greatest weakness, therefore hoping to trick me into giving away the key to my own undoing?” He kicks the fallen table aside and stands over her. “That is just _so cute_.”   
  
Every instinct in her screams to crawl away from him, to put as much distance between them as possible, but she refuses grovel at his feet. She tries to pull herself upright, but the muscles in her legs are shaky and unresponsive. She falls and he steps forward to catch her, his arms around her waist, his smile eerily friendly and far too close. A cut on his forehead weeps blood, his souvenir from her attack. She shoves him away and stumbles backwards until she can lean against the wall for support.   
  
“Hope you don’t mind waiting,” she manages to say. “It’ll be a long time before he thinks to come after me.”   
  
He inhales, his breath hissing through his teeth, his expression skeptical. “Somehow I doubt that.” With one hand in his trouser pocket and the weapon hidden in the grip of the other, he looks so normal and relaxed that they may as well be discussing the weather.  
  
“He’ll probably think I’ve gone shopping.”   
  
“Like totally, for sure.” He rolls his eyes. “Good grief, woman. How thick do you think I am?”  
  
She chuckles faintly, terrified. The trembling in her legs has spread to her abdomen, her muscles quivering as she strains to stay upright. “Toss me that gun and I’ll tell you.”   
  
“Gun?” he gasps, feigning insult. “Who said anything about a gun?” He opens his fist to reveal a large metal cylinder. He twirls it effortlessly from one finger of his hand to the next and grins at her jauntily. “Screwdriver!”   
  
She laughs and slips further down the wall. “Oh, now I get it. What, were you two at school together or something? Did he steal your girlfriend?” She gives him her smuggest, most human smile. “Or is this a fanboy thing?”  
  
“Having trouble staying on your feet, Rose?” he asks, stepping closer, his voice dripping with counterfeit concern. “Then again, I imagine a girl like you would be most comfortable on her back.”  
  
Rose stares up at him, her breath coming fast and shallow, and remembers the hard beat of his hearts against her palms. She is drawn to the darkness of his eyes, brown and burning cold and familiar, and it sickens her. His mocking smile fades and as he stares back at her, entranced, she is alarmed by what she sees in his face. Recognition. Longing.  
  
A strange tingling sensation has now spread through her chest and shoulders, and her arms are beginning to weaken. “What have you done to me?” she demands through gritted teeth.  
  
“Added a little kick to your lemonade,” he says, and the manic façade returns. “Spiked it with the tiniest bit of…well, let’s say _venom_ , for lack of a better word. I quite like venom. Sounds wonderfully nasty, don’t you think?” She finally slumps to the floor, her limbs useless and limp. He tucks the screwdriver into an inside pocket of his suit coat and kneels in front of her, grinning. “In about…” he checks his watch, and for the first time she notices the golden flash of his wedding ring, “five minutes you’ll be entirely paralyzed. But completely conscious, which is just how I want you.”   
  
“How romantic,” she spits. He giggles and grabs her beneath her arms, effortlessly hauling her upright and then slamming her against the wall, trapping her there with the press of his body. She tries to struggle, to strike out at him, but all she can manage is a feeble movement of her head. His chest, his hips are flush against her own, but it is the crass intimacy of his fingers twining with hers that makes her want to retch. She has just enough muscle control left to dig her fingernails viciously into the skin of his hand.  
  
He hums happily against her hair, nuzzling her neck. “Oh, that’s lovely. Don’t stop.” He moves against her, and she bites hard on her lower lip, holding back a cry.   
  
“Well,” she chokes out, her voice thick with rage, “that explains the size of your sonic screwdriver. Trying to compensate, are we?”   
  
He pulls back slightly and meets her eyes. “ _Laser_ screwdriver,” he corrects rather prissily.   
  
“So sorry, my mistake,” she snaps. “I take it back. You’re a stud.”  
  
He laughs, shifting his hips away from her. “Rose Tyler,” he says warmly, “I knew you’d be fascinating, but I never dreamed that I’d actually _like_ you.” He gives her a smile, a wicked curl of lips and a glint of teeth. “No wonder he misses you so much.”   
  
Her breath stops in her chest. “I don’t understand,” she manages after a moment, her voice hoarse.   
  
His head tilts slightly to one side. “Oh, I think you do,” he says, his voice low.  
  
For the first time in a long time she longs for a linear life, one in which Christmas comes but once a year and she knows exactly how old she is. One in which this horrible man can’t stand here, smug and smirking, and tell her how she died.  
  
She shakes her head weakly, clinging to doubt, the tingling pain spreading to the muscles of her neck. “He can’t…I haven’t been gone half an hour.”  
  
“Half an hour?” He pretends to consider this, his forehead wrinkling. “I’d say closer to three or four years, judging by layers of dust I found in your bedroom.” He leans in as if sharing a great secret. “You wouldn’t _believe_ the things I had to do to the TARDIS before she’d let me in there.” He shivers playfully, his eyes wide. “Gives me the creeping horrors just thinking about it.”   
  
Anger burns through her, a building fury that sets tears stinging behind her eyes and in her throat. “I don’t believe you.”  
  
The Master’s grin is sharp. “You’re gone, Rose. Trapped far away where he can never reach you, and _oh_ , how he grieves. Your absence is a burden, pulling him to darkness, and when he says your name you can hear him break.” His eyes close and a look of bliss comes over his features. “It’s _delicious_.”  
  
“You’re lying,” she hisses, but a voice from the back of her mind whispers, _A storm is coming_.   
  
He presses his forehead to hers, their noses bumping. “Oh, my foolish little Rose,” he whispers gently. Then he opens his eyes, and what she sees there makes her tremble. “The walls have closed, and he isn’t alone anymore.”   
  
“Why should I believe _anything_ you say?” she asks, her voice shaking.   
  
“Well,” he drawls softly, then snaps his face away from hers and gives her a bright smile, “because I have these!” He steps away from her entirely to reach into his pocket and she crashes to the floor, unable to so much as move her arms to break her fall. He bites his lip and looks down at her, his face a mask of boyish remorse. “Oops.”   
  
“Git,” she mutters. It doesn’t really do justice to the seething hatred she feels towards him, but it’s a start.   
  
“So sorry, my bad,” he says gaily, hoisting her up against the wall again. Her head flops to one side and he nudges it upright with his own, his hands otherwise occupied. For an awkward moment he looks from where his hands grip her waist to the pocket he’d tried to reach, then back to his hands. He frowns, puzzled, until inspiration strikes. “Aha!” He shoves his knee between her legs and uses it to prop her up against the wall. She winces, mentally recoiling from the intimate press of his thigh. “Now who’s brilliant?” he asks, grinning, and whips a pair of yellow knickers from his trouser pocket.   
  
She blinks at him, unimpressed. “Oh no,” she says. “What horrors have you unleashed now?” Then he hooks his fingers through each side of the waistband and holds them up so she can clearly see the word ‘Monday’ printed in white letters across the bottom. Her stomach lurches and she feels a raw chill settle over her skin despite the stifling heat of the summer air.   
  
“Honestly, Rose,” he chides, shaking his head. “Day-of-the-week knickers in a time ship? What sort of sense does that make?”   
  
“Where did you get those?” she asks, her voice low and furious. She already knows the answer.   
  
“The floor beneath your bed. You should _really_ learn to use the hamper.” He crumples her knickers into his fist and holds them to his face, his eyes closing as he inhales. “Freshest pair I could find. Even after all those years, there’s still the slightest hint…” He opens his eyes and arches one eyebrow at her. “Do you suppose that means you were wearing Tuesday the day he lost you?”   
  
“Those aren’t mine.”  
  
“Are you sure? Want a whiff?” He’s about to press them into her face when he hesitates and draws his hand back. “Right. Should probably check today’s first. Wouldn’t want a knicker paradox on our hands, now would we?” One-handed, he undoes the button and zip of her jeans with unsettling grace, and she nearly shrieks in frustration as she struggles to move her unresponsive limbs. He looks down at her exposed knickers and his mouth quirks in a half-smile. “Lilac. Very nice.”   
  
“You bastard,” she growls, shuddering and helpless.  
  
He shoves the yellow ball of cotton back into his pocket and presses his body to hers until she can feel the outline of each brick in the exposed wall behind her. “Name-calling is beneath you, Rose,” he says softly, his cool breath tickling her face. “Use your ‘I’ statements, please. I feel, I think, I believe…”  
  
“ _I feel_ that you’re a cheap, slimy bastard who’d better _pray_ the Doctor gets to you before I do.”   
  
A slow grin spreads across his face. “Are you threatening me, Rose Tyler?”   
  
She meets his dark eyes and the screams of the Dalek Emperor echo in her ears. “Yes.”  
  
“And you think that’s wise in your current…” he pauses suggestively, “position?”   
  
It is her turn to grin, and she watches as his falters. “You can’t touch me.”   
  
“Oh, can’t I?” He rocks hard against her, and she has to close her eyes and think herself far away, to pretend that she is still cradled among the wires and lights of the console, the TARDIS’ hum soft in her ears.   
  
“You’re from the Doctor’s future,” she bites out, her eyes still closed. “The Doctor with me doesn’t know you’re alive yet, and you can’t risk him finding out now. It would disrupt the timeline, maybe even change things so badly that you couldn’t have stolen the TARDIS in your past, and so you wouldn’t be here to be a bastard to me in my present.” She opens her eyes to find him staring at her, obviously annoyed. “You can’t kill me, you can’t keep me, and you can’t hurt me — not seriously. Not without creating something a lot worse than a knicker paradox, am I right?”   
  
He reaches up, his face deadly serious, and brushes his cool fingers across her temple. “I don’t have to kill you to make this trip worth the airfare, Rose.”  
  
Her face is in his hands and she is ripped open, exposed to light and pain and his mind, cold and hard in hers. The force of his entrance into her thoughts is excruciating, and she screams before she can stop herself. Her head snaps back against the wall and she bites down sharply on the inside of her cheek. She can taste the iron of her own blood.   
  
_“Yummy,”_ his mind murmurs within hers.   
  
“Get out,” she gasps aloud. “Get out _now_.”  
  
 _“You said it yourself, little one,”_ he says, his voice seeping into her thoughts like oil. _“I can’t kill you, I can’t keep you, and I can’t hurt you — not so he’d notice, anyway. Your dear Doctor can’t know I’m alive, and I can hardly leave you intact enough to ruin the surprise, now can I?”_   
  
He moves within her, reaching further into her mind, shredding her thin defenses with a thousand wintry, grasping fingers that snag and tear and burn. She tries to pull away as she did when Cassandra possessed her, to hide and shrink into dusty, unused corners, but he simply laughs and presses deeper into the recesses of her mind, following her. She wants to cry out, but her lips and tongue will no longer obey her, and her eyelids are like lead. The poison has paralyzed her completely.   
  
_“Oh,”_ the Master sighs blissfully, his voice rich and cool. _“Dear though he may be, the Doctor has never been in_ here _, has he? You’re untouched.”_ He dips into memories, running his fingers through them as if they were shifting sand. _“You’ve no idea how pleased I am to be the first.”_  
  
He reaches a memory of Shireen, her friend’s voice soft and smiling as they whispered late-night secrets in a darkened room, sharing a stolen beer. Rose slams a wall down between him and the thought, forcing him back.   
  
He laughs and the taunting sound echoes in her mind as well as in her ears. _“She’s got courage, she’s got pluck, and according to Jimmy Stones, she’s one hell of a–”_   
  
Rose discovers that punching someone in your mind is much less painful than doing so physically. Actually, it isn’t so much a punch as a convulsion, shoving him back to the surface of her mind with all the strength of her will. She throws up wall after wall in his wake, preventing his return. She builds a fortress around the inner reaches of her mind, using her fury and her fear as bricks and mortar. There are things she will not let him touch.   
  
“That’s my girl,” he whispers against her lips. “I would be _so_ disappointed if you went down without a fight.”   
  
_Get fucked_ , she thinks as clearly as she can, and judging by his chuckle he gets the message.   
  
His touch on her face gentles, his fingertips slowly stroking her temples. “Your mum is dead, Rose,” he says, his voice low and sure, his lips brushing the corner of her mouth.   
  
Her disbelief is quickly followed by rage, a towering, vengeful frenzy that consumes her. The walls within her mind grow higher.   
  
“Oh, it wasn’t me, if that’s what you’re thinking.” His finger traces the whorls of her right ear. “Battle of Canary Wharf, not so very long ago. Jacqueline Andrea Suzette Tyler. Never could sort out if it was Cybermen or the Daleks that got her in the end, but there was no body, so I’d bet she was Cyberized.” He paused. “Too bad, really. I’d like to have met her.”  
  
 _You stay_ away _from my mum,_ she rages at him, her fury sparking hot red lights behind her eyes.   
  
“That’s a bit pointless, isn’t it?” He sighs wearily. “Yes, Miss Tyler, I promise to stay away from your dead mum. You have my word as a gentleman.”   
  
_She’s not dead,_ Rose thinks feverishly, _she’s not. I know she’s not._ Unbidden, memories of her mother, recent and from times long past, rise to the forefront of her mind.   
  
“Oh, Rose,” he says softly, as if she has hurt him. “I have never lied to you, not once. I never will.” He cups her chin in his hand. “Can you say the same about him?”  
  
Her hesitation is all the opening he needs. His mind slams into hers again, knocking the walls aside as if they were made of cardboard and paste. He rips through her, rushing quickly past her memories and everyday thoughts to the darkness beyond, depths she rarely visits in her waking hours.   
  
“You are so _tight_ ,” he rasps into her ear. “Has your mind recently been compressed by a psychograft, by any chance?” She tries to force him out again, but he is prepared this time and simply slaps her away. _“Bit busy, do you mind?”_ he snaps inside her head  
  
And he is busy, she realises. He’s begun to search through layers of unconscious memories and dreams, exposing images and feelings she doesn’t remember remembering — the pattern on the paper napkins at her fifth birthday party, the frayed hem of her favorite jumper, words the Doctor has whispered to her as she slept. She struggles and he laughs.   
  
_“This place,”_ he says, chucking aside the smell of hairspray and the glow of early morning sunlight in her mum’s flat, _“is an absolute mess. No wonder you can never find anything in here.”_ She can feel his frustration. _“I’d sell your soul for a card catalog right about now.”_   
  
Then he goes still and quiet, and dread pounds like a heartbeat within her when she realises what he’s seen.   
  
_“Oh, would you look at those ears!”_ he cries, delighted. _“And that nose! What a funny little face your Doctor had before you killed him.”_   
  
Memory after memory of the Doctor illuminates and fades as he shifts through them eagerly — pale eyes and mad grin at the end of the world, soft Northern tones and the clink of tea mugs, hands calloused and cool in hers. She watches, breathless with fury, as he pores through all of them.   
  
_“These are conscious memories, Rose,”_ he says, his tone that of a scolding schoolmaster. _“Whatever can they be doing all the way down here?”_ He laughs aloud at the sight of the Doctor struggling with a shop window dummy’s arm. _“You’ve been hiding him from me, you little minx.”_   
  
Jackie Tyler slaps the Doctor’s face, and the Master’s joy is such that she’s sure he’d be clapping if his hands weren’t otherwise occupied, his fingers digging into her temples.   
  
_“Oh, I knew I would have loved that woman._ Fantastic _.”_  
  
Her mum, dead. The Doctor, alone. And he laughs.  
  
Rose’s sudden, vicious assault on his mind works only because it is unexpected, she knows, so she makes the most of the few moments she has. He has left himself vulnerable, and the gateway between their minds is open and unguarded. Once she passes through, it is chaos.   
  
The sky is blood red heat ripped asunder, stars swirling and dying in the blackness beyond. She can understand nothing else — she is lost in a terrible, unfathomable space, deadly silent but for the pounding that is almost not a sound at all, the constant, gut wrenching rhythm that makes her want to claw at her own ears until they bleed.   
  
She reaches out blindly and clutches the first tangible memory she finds. Separated from the miasma of thought around her, it solidifies into a city — a vast, white metropolis spread across the land in the shape of a cross. A shadow passes overhead and she clutches the console of her battle-ready TARDIS as she recognizes the massive, domed ship hovering over the Cruciform. She hears the screams, and she runs.   
  
The Master tears her from the memory like a weed and hurls her back into the depths of her own mind. She can feel him tremble, his panting breaths cool against her cheek.   
  
_You left them,_ she thinks dazedly, overwhelmed. _They died, all of them, and you just left. You were so frightened. So small…_   
  
He strikes her, hard, across the face, and her cheek stings with the heat of his blow. “Don’t you dare,” he spits, “don’t you dare _pity_ me, you little _whore_.”  
  
Her laugh is little more than a tinkling sound within her own mind, but she knows it infuriates him nonetheless. _And you,_ she thinks back, _need to give some serious thought to your choice of humiliating insults. ‘Cause the disgraced woman bit? So last century._  
  
 _“Is that so?”_ he hisses in her mind. He digs roughly through her memories until he finds a long-haired Rose and a pale-eyed Doctor standing in the storage room at Albion Hospital, and again she feels the pulsing, electric heat beneath her skin as the Doctor takes her hands and they stumble into a dance. _“This, Rose, is lust — pure, unthinking, selfish want. The oh-so-human desire to take, to soil, to_ ruin _. If you’d had your way that night, you would have ridden him into exhaustion, knees grinding into concrete, and only the mindless ill would have heard your greedy grunts.”_ He presses himself hard against her and smiles within her mind. _“That part of you disgusts him.”_   
  
In response, she silently shows him the domed ship from his memory, his fevered nightmares. It looms in dark, empty space until she reveals the others, a fleet two hundred ships strong. He watches, hypnotized, as they burn.   
  
_“The Dalek Emperor,”_ he whispers. _“How…”_  
  
 _Me_ , she answers. _I turned them to dust, destroyed them all to save him. Pure, unthinking, oh-so-human love._ She shows him her burnished gold memories of stepping out of the TARDIS, her eyes aflame. You _ran._ I _came back.  
  
“That’s madness.”_  
  
Paralyzed, violated, and trapped within her own mind, she grins. _No, baby. That’s just how I roll._  
  
“Hold on. I’ve heard this story,” he mutters to himself aloud. “She came back. Opened the heart of the TARDIS and absorbed the Time Vortex itself. _She came back_ That’s what he…” He gives a mad bark of laughter and seizes the memory of her glowing face wet with tears. _“Brilliant! Who needs a card catalog when you have a gullible idiot for a library?”_  
  
Before she can spare a moment for confusion he is thrusting deeper into her mind, burrowing into places she has never known, depths forbidden and untouchable. His intrusion is unbearable, a searing ache behind her eyes, and she feels herself crumbling, the cool shadow of decay moving over her mind.   
  
_“I can_ smell _it,”_ he moans, ecstatic. _“It burns and sings and it’s so close, Rose. So close, after all these years…”_ And there, in the endless darkness of the far reaches of her mind, she sees a sharp spark of gold. He hurtles toward it, and she is helpless to stop him. The light grows stronger, and he laughs. _“Such a simple little creature. Who would have thought you could hold such power, such madness within you? You hide it away, but you still stink of it, light leaking through every pore. Would I taste it on you, do you think?”_   
  
His hand grips her chin and, wrenching her jaw open, he plunges his eager tongue between her lips to run along her teeth and the roof of her mouth. He tastes like pineapple and blood, and she gags, that involuntary resistance all that’s left to her. He bites down gently on her bottom lip.   
  
_“You taste of_ him _.”_ He kisses her nose in a parody of affection. _“I wonder if, after all this time, he still tastes of you?”_  
  
His mind reaches out, almost tentatively, to the tiny ball of golden light, the speck of the Vortex that remains within her. It is within his grasp and he hesitates.   
  
_Please,_ she thinks, the pain in her head building to an unrelenting agony. _Please don’t._  
  
 _“Can you hear it, Rose?”_ the Master whispers in her mind, intoxicated. _“I thought, if anyone…it never, ever stops, but you — the little human girl who swallowed time and burned like the sun. You hold the answer.”_ He clutches her jaw, his fingers like iron. _“You_ have _to.”_  
  
He seizes the light, holds it in the shadowed fist of his mind, and the pain disappears.   
  
Rose opens her eyes.   
  
“Oh,” she says, her voice rough, “you really shouldn’t have done that.”   
  
Then she is in flame, consumed by a light of unimaginable intensity. Her body awakes, arms and legs and hands tingling with life and fury and fire, and as he stumbles away from her she takes him by the throat and slams him against the wall.   
  
She is Time, and in his dark eyes she sees his fear.   
  
“Name me,” she says, her voice echoing with a power not her own.   
  
“Well,” he gasps, laughing hoarsely, “if it isn’t the Doctor’s shiny little genocidal sidekick. I must have been a very good boy to deserve this.”   
  
Her grip tightens, and she can feel the fragile veins and tendons of his throat strain beneath her hands. “The Doctor finds you precious, Time Lord, but I do not. I am all that is, was, and will be, and you will name me.”  
  
“Rose Tyler,” he chokes out. He struggles, his hands clutching at her fingers, and, more to communicate the futility of this than to cause him pain, she slowly begins to crush his windpipe.   
  
“Name me.”   
  
His eyes are wide, panicked. “You’re…the Vortex, the heart of…his TARDIS, the Untempered Schism, eternity…” He bares his teeth at her, his chest heaving as he fights for air. “Please.”   
  
His double pulse beats frantically against her hand, and the darkness within her gives a feral grin. Her fingernails dig into his skin as she forces him to stare into the golden glow of her eyes and she opens her mind to him, showing him the whirls and eddies of light within.  
  
“Name me.”   
  
“Bad Wolf,” he croaks, his lips pale. “You are the Bad Wolf.”  
  
Her hold on him loosens slightly. “A mere memory. A remnant, hidden in the depths.” She steps closer and feels him shudder. “You seek the Vortex.”   
  
“The drums,” he says, trying to swallow. “What are they?”   
  
She arches one eyebrow. “That is your question, Time Lord? You wish to know the nature of your madness?” She moves closer still, her free hand resting gently on his cheek, and her lips brush his ear. “They are _nothing_.”  
  
“No,” he says, the word a breathless sob.   
  
Her index finger lightly, mockingly taps out the rhythm against the soft skin of his face. “It is the sound of your mind and no more.”   
  
“You’re lying,” he hisses.   
  
“Perhaps.” She pulls away and, pitiless, looks into his eyes. “You will never know.”   
  
“I will _destroy_ him,” he says, red-faced and shaking with rage. “I will watch the hope rot inside him, hollowing him out until he is nothing but a _shell_ , an empty husk of what you knew. He is mine to ruin and when you hear his screams, worlds away, you will weep.”   
  
She smiles, showing her teeth. “Foolish, frightened little man. She will laugh as she watches you fall.” Without relinquishing her grip on his throat, she takes his hand and places his fingers against her temple. “Take the memories. Preserve the timeline.”  
  
His hand trembles. “How do you know I won’t take it all? Snap your mind in two and laugh as he tries to put you back together?”  
  
“You are not a complicated creature, Time Lord,” she replies as the fire in her eyes begins to fade. “You fear a paradox and would never risk your own life. Not even for revenge.” Her grip weakens and he inhales, once, twice, sharp hard breaths.   
  
The golden light dims, retreating again to the depths of her mind, and he watches as her legs collapse beneath her and she sinks to the floor. She is dizzy and overwhelmed, suddenly aware of the mundane sounds of the pizzeria around them. He kneels beside her and takes her face in his hands. “One day,” he says softly, “I will kill you for that.”  
  
“Impossible,” she murmurs, though she isn’t sure why.   
  
He brushes a strand of hair from her face. “I like impossible.”   
  
She hears the ding of a bell and a man’s voice calls, “Order up!”   
  
Then she is swallowed by darkness.    
  
 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

It was night on the Valiant.  
  
The airship’s engines hummed steadily in the rare silence, the lights dim. It was the first night the ship had seen in more than a week — the Master had chased the sun across the sky for days, fleeing the dark. He’d denied the humans sleep, watching as they collapsed one by one from exhaustion. It was a small cruelty, and he’d tired of it long before the last of them hit the floor.  
  
He let his head rest against the cool metal of the wall and exhaled loudly. Before him, the Doctor sat slumped in his wheelchair and though he faced the porthole and its view of the starry night sky, the Master knew he did not see it. The Doctor’s eyes were absent, empty. It made the Master want to rip them out and stomp on them.  
  
“And I’d thought you were dull when you _talked_ ,” he said, his menacing cheer sounding more forced than usual.  
  
The Doctor didn’t so much as blink.  
  
The Master spent a few minutes amusing himself by flicking tiny bits of paper at his nemesis’ aged face. After the third time he missed an eye and got the Doctor’s nose instead, he dropped the torn piece of paper to the floor. “You’re no fun, you know that?”  
  
The Doctor stared, silent.  
  
The Master twisted his head to peer out the porthole at the black, glittering sky. Below, the Earth was hidden by a layer of pale blue clouds. “The trouble with conquering a planet as small as this one,” the Master said conversationally, “is how quickly you run out of things to blow up.” He tapped his finger idly against the glass of the window. “The Eiffel Tower was a bit disappointing, wasn’t it? Just lurched like a nauseated giraffe and toppled over.” He looked back at the Doctor and grinned. “Still, I’m glad we saw it. I know how you enjoy Paris.”  
  
The Doctor breathed.  
  
The Master lashed out, his foot connecting solidly with the wheelchair. The Doctor flew backwards a few feet, gradually rolling to a stop. If he noticed at all, he did not show it.  
  
The Master took a number of deep, calming breaths and rubbed his eyes. “I am,” he said, his voice strained, “so very, _very_ bored.” He paused briefly and then brightened, suddenly looking almost giddy. “I know just the thing. Oh yes, that will do nicely.” He stood and moved to lean over the Doctor, his hands gripping the armrests of the wheelchair. “I _was_ going to save it for a rainy day, but I think we can assume it’s raining somewhere down there, don’t you?” He crouched at the Doctor’s feet with a grin, his elbows resting on his knees, the eager supplicant. “I’ve got a lovely little bedtime story for you, Doctor.”  
  
His only response was silence.  
  
The Master’s smile shone white, lit by dim lamps and starlight. “Once upon a time,” he began, “there was a girl.” The corner of his mouth quirked. “Isn’t there always? This one was nothing special, really — bit common, decent tits. Not particularly bright. One day, her dear old mum sent her to her grandmother’s house in the woods to deliver a basket of sweets. So she donned her little red riding hood and went skipping through the forest, giggling and simpering and…” he gestured vaguely, “other little girl things.”  
  
The Doctor stared into the distance, his mind far away. The Master smirked.  
  
“Do you already know this one, Doctor? Am I boring you?” He patted his leg affectionately. “Well, you’d probably expect the big, _bad_ wolf to make an appearance at this point, but, you see, this particular wolf had the unusual advantage of a stolen TARDIS. A stolen TARDIS with a stolen destination log. A log with an entry that read ‘Manhattan, 17th August, 2007. Repairs, pizza.’”  
  
The Doctor slowly met the Master’s gaze, a small spark of disbelief and horror growing in the emptiness of his eyes.  
  
The Master grinned. “The wolf was already waiting when Little Red Riding Hood arrived. They were both quite hungry.”  
  
“You didn’t,” the Doctor said, his voice coarse and faint.  
  
“Now, where are your manners?” he scolded, hardly able to contain his joy. “ _I’m_ telling this story. Where was I?” He stood, looming over the Doctor. “Ah yes. _Granny’s_.” He rubbed his hands together delightedly and continued in a breathy parody of a London accent, “‘Grandmother,’ Little Red Riding Hood said, ‘what a snappy suit you're wearing!’ ‘All the better to charm you with, my dear,’ said the wolf. ‘Grandmother,’ Little Red Riding Hood said, ‘what cold hands you have!’” The Master leaned forward until his face was inches from the Doctor’s. “The wolf grinned a devilish grin and said, ‘All the better to _hold_ you with, my dear.’”  
  
The Doctor seized his lapel with one wizened hand. “Stop it.”  
  
“‘Grandmother,’ Little Red Riding Hood said, now quite excited, ‘how many _hearts_ you have!’” The Master gently placed his hand over the Doctor’s and his grin faded. “All the better to break you with, my dear.”  
  
“You’re lying,” the Doctor snapped, his eyes dark and furious.  
  
The Master shook his head slowly, almost sadly. “Oh, my old friend. When will you learn?” He eased the Doctor’s fingers from the expensive fabric of his suit coat and let their interlocked hands rest in the Doctor’s lap. “She’d been sloppy with her makeup that morning, and there was a particularly large clump of mascara in her bottom right eyelash. She had a spot of mechanical grease on her elbow and preferred mushrooms to pineapple.” He squeezed the Doctor’s hand. “She cried out your name as I violated her.”  
  
The Master fell to floor more from shock than the force of the Doctor’s punch. He raised a shaking hand to his split lip and stared at him with wonder in his eyes. “You hit me!” he crowed. “ _You_ hit _me_!” He leapt to his feet and his palms hit the armrests with a smack before he slammed the wheelchair into a wall. He touched his forehead to the Doctor’s, his eyes wide and mad. “Do it again.”  
  
The Doctor gritted his teeth.  
  
The Master laughed. “You have only one thing to say to me, am I right? Well, what is it? Just this once, I’ll listen. Say it.” The Doctor stared at him, his eyes burning. “What, nothing? Come on, you sanctimonious bastard, _say it_.”  
  
The Doctor’s breath came hard and harsh, but he said nothing.  
  
The Master stood back from the wheelchair and smiled. “I thought not,” he said, and left.  
  
The Doctor didn’t speak again for two months.  
  
++  
  
“Hey kid, did you hear me? Your pies are ready.”  
  
Rose jerks back to reality to see the wiry man who’d taken her order staring at her, his expression one of concern. She laughs a little, embarrassed. “Sorry, don’t know where I was just then.” As she slips down from the stool she feels her jeans begin to fall from her waist. She blushes hard when she realises that her trousers have somehow come undone, and does up the zip as quickly and subtly as she can. The man politely pretends not to notice. Still red in the face, she reaches for the pizza boxes. They smell delicious, and her stomach rumbles. “Thanks,” she says, and the man nods.  
  
“You want more lemonade to go?” he asks, and she blinks at him.  
  
“Lemonade?”  
  
He points to the white Styrofoam cup sitting on the counter near her stool, his obvious concern for her mental health deepening.  
  
Rose shakes her head. “Oh, that’s not mine. Someone probably left it there. Want me to throw it in the bin?”  
  
He looks as if he’s about to argue, but then he shrugs. “Go ahead.”  
  
She drops the nearly empty cup into the bin by the door and then carries the pizzas the hot, crowded half-block back to the TARDIS. When she reaches the blue box and slips inside, she is greeted by a grime-covered face popping out from under the console. “There you are, slow poke. What took you so long?”  
  
She rolls her eyes and drops the pizzas onto the grated floor by his head. “Never occurred to you that extra sauce and extra cheese might take extra time?”  
  
“You and your logic. I am above such things.” He wriggles out from under the console and rips open the smaller of the two boxes.  
  
“Oi!” she cries. “That’s mine.”  
  
He wrinkles his nose and sticks out his tongue. It is not one of his more flattering expressions. “Mushrooms. Blech.”  
  
She grins and snatches the box from his hands. “You are so predictable.”  
  
He takes them back into the Vortex, and they spend a lazy hour or two working and eating, bickering cheerfully and enjoying the occasional contented, familiar silence. The Doctor demolishes his pizza, until only one small slice is left. He licks his fingers and smiles at her. “You should try it.”  
  
She pulls her attention away from his mouth, afraid she has been caught staring. “What?”  
  
“Pineapple pizza. I bet you’ve never even tried it before.”  
  
“‘Course I have,” she says airily, but doesn’t meet his eyes.  
  
He scoots across the floor until he’s beside her, invading her space. “You’re lying,” he says, his voice warm, flirtatious.  
  
She gives him a defiant look, to which he arches a skeptical eyebrow in response.  
  
He reaches across her to the open pizza box and grabs the last pineapple-covered slice. He holds it in front of her mouth, his expression impish. “I dare you.”  
  
Holding his gaze, she takes a bite.  
  
She makes a face at the strange combination of tastes, and then feels an odd stinging in the delicate skin of the inside of her cheek. Her tongue automatically moves to probe the source of the pain. She can feel the open cut the pineapple juice has irritated, and tastes the iron of her own blood.  
  
She gags, clapping a hand over her mouth, and lurches to her feet. The Doctor reaches for her but she runs, hurtling down the corridor to the nearest loo. She hears him shout her name as she falls to her knees in front of the toilet bowl and begins to retch.  
  
Her throat burns as she convulses, the violence of her body’s reaction beyond her control. She sobs for breath between each spasm of her stomach, her eyes blurry with tears, helpless and horrified. Minutes pass before she notices his fingers in her hair, holding it away from her face, or his hand’s steady circles on her back. “I’m sorry, Rose,” he’s murmuring, over and over again. “It’s all right. I’ve got you. It’s all right.”  
  
 _Liar_ , she thinks before the acid rises and she vomits again. She still tastes pineapple and blood.  
  
Eventually, there’s nothing left. She is left empty, trembling, her fingers still gripping the cool porcelain of the toilet. He sets a glass of tepid water beside her on the tile floor and begins to wipe her face with a cool, damp flannel. She closes her eyes and lets him.  
  
“Rose,” he says softly, hesitantly, “are you all right?”  
  
She opens her eyes and meets his dark, familiar gaze. “I’m fine,” she says. “Don’t know what that was about, but I’m fine.” She is telling the truth.  
  
But a moment later his fingers gently brush her temple and she flinches.  
  
  
  



End file.
